


Reliant

by GoodyearTheShippyCat



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angry Sex, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Being Lost, Biting, Choking, Clothed Sex, Crying, Emotional Roller Coaster, Face Slapping, Fight Sex, Gentle Caresses, Gloves, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Held Down, Kissing, Lube, M/M, Mild Blood, Mildly Dubious Consent, Name-Calling, Not Canon Compliant, Pet Names, Rough Kissing, Slut Shaming, Space Battles, Tears, Unhealthy Relationships, Using Appropriate Amounts of Lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 06:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17976119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodyearTheShippyCat/pseuds/GoodyearTheShippyCat
Summary: Reliant (adjective): having or showing dependence on something or someone.Because sometimes you just need a good old-fashioned, salty, angry, not-quite-hatefuck… that turns into something else. One possible scenario that could have played out between Abel and Cain after their emotional confrontation on the observation deck and escape from the ship.





	Reliant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Francowitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Francowitch/gifts).



> A very happy birthday to [Francowitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/francowitch)! This was supposed to just be some cockpit sex PWP, because I know how much you like that. But then all my Caibel feels from the past year kind of hijacked it. Oops. I hope you like feels with your porn… 
> 
> This fic diverges from the canon events in the comic at page 5-66, where they make a break for their Starfighter. The dialogue quotes taken directly from the comic (styled in all italics) come from the following pages: 5-48, 5-56, 5-49, 5-37, 5-39, and 5-41. The first three are Cook’s lines, the last three are Cain’s.

Everything was searing brightness and a feeling of complete disembodiment, almost disintegration, which he had experienced only once before.

_KSSSKT!_

The shockwave of a loud crack in the atmosphere of their cockpit. Like a thunderclap trying to escape into the inky void around them, but unable to—nowhere for it to travel in the vacuum of space. Just reverberating against the interior surfaces of their Starfighter, against their bodies, making it feel like the universe quaking apart. All in a fraction of a second.

Then darkness, and silence. Except for the screaming agony in his skull, feeling as if it will split open at any moment, even worse than the first time.

Abel, just barely capable of self-recognition so soon after the overwhelming series of sensations, dropped his head into his hands, bent nearly double as he fought the nausea accompanying the intense pain in his head. Slowly, he began to come back from it. Tried to piece together the shaken parts of himself, remembering what had happened before the shift in reality.

His lip hurt—not where Cain had scarred him so many months ago—but where his commanding officer had slapped him; the inside of his cheek no longer bleeding, but swelling a little nonetheless. The pain made it difficult to focus, to connect the dots and figure out how they got from there to here.

He remembered what had happened in scattered pieces, struggling to shift them around in his mind and make sense of their order. They’d managed to start up the _Reliant_ , get out of the hangar and into the fray… but too late? The afterimages of their own fleet coming back, zooming towards them.

_What happened before that?_ He vaguely remembered walking most of the way to their ship, silently, without alerting the guards. _Had that been his idea?_ They’d been noticed and shot at, eventually.

_FZZ! SHZ!_

He could recall the sounds of energy rifles. How their hiss and crackle still rang in his ears as they’d taken fire from their own side after take off, giving a soundtrack to the sight of Starfighter weapon blasts streaking past them into empty space. A counterpoint to the incessant _RRRR! RRRR!_ of their warning alarms when they inevitably got hit. Pursued, no doubt, at Cook’s order.  

_WARNING. ANTIMATTER EXPLOSION IMMINENT._

They’d been hurtling right into the range of the antimatter bombs in the Colteron shipyard. Travelling the wrong direction, away from the _Sleipnir,_ away from their fellow soldiers, away from everything he’d thought was safe. He remembered the finality of his mindset, knowing it wouldn’t be possible to get out of range. Accepting his fate.

“I guess this is it,” he’d said to Cain. One last goodbye. Not a very good one, either.

Having recovered enough to figure it all out, Abel’s first reaction was relief. That they hadn’t died. That his parents wouldn’t have to bury an empty coffin. _Not yet, anyway,_ he thought, slowly opening his eyes.

Shockingly enough—or perhaps disappointingly predictably—they’d jumped. It had worked. Cain had been right… he could still work the jump drive. His second reaction was fury and disappointment in himself for still caring that much. He didn’t have any time to get past that feeling before the fighter’s voice travelled from the other compartment of the cockpit.

“Abel… we’re alive… it still worked. You did it!”

“Shut up, Cain!” he replied, teeth grinding with the unwelcome noise, head still throbbing in his hands.

“Does this mean-”

“Shut UP, Cain! My head feels like it’s going to split in two. I can’t deal with this right now!”

“…sorry”

They sat in silence for a bit. Abel could hear Cain fidgeting in his seat, undoing his restraints as they drifted through space. Too far away to even see the battle scene, he realized when he turned his head slowly to look out the windows of the cockpit hatch. No idea where they were, sensors in the ship still recalibrating. The thud of Cain’s helmet being set on the floor sounded a hundred times louder from within Abel’s aching skull and he clutched at it, letting out a pained whimper.

Abel wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Cain spoke again.

“I’m sorry” he repeated quietly, an unfamiliar tone—what sounded almost like regret—in his words. Sadder than earlier, on the observation deck. More resigned?

Abel didn’t respond. He just listened, every nerve on edge, as the fighter shimmied around to the navigator compartment, repeating himself.

“I’m sorry, Abel.”

“Leave me _alone_ ,” he gritted out, not looking at the dark-haired shadow in his peripheral vision.

“Hey! You can’t just ignore me.”

“I’m not. Just give me a minute.”

“We’ve gotta figure out how the fuck to get home,” said Cain without even a moment’s hesitation, voice rising as he crawled to loom over Abel in the confined space.

“What’s the point?”

“Tch! Getting that fucking asshole Cook court martialed, for starters!” Cain said. He probably wasn’t yelling, but every word felt like it as they pounded in Abel’s ears.

“I don’t even know where we jumped to, or how to control where we end up.”

“Well, we’d better get thinking, then, huh!”

“Just let me have a _minute_ , Cain!” said Abel, his own voice gaining in decibels even though it hurt.

“The oxygen’s not gonna last forever, Princess!”

The sound of his open palm meeting Cain’s cheek rang through the confined space of the cockpit. Cain froze, hunched there with disbelief scrawled across his features. It had been a hard slap; probably harder than Abel had ever hit anyone in his life. His hand stung where it had made contact with the other man’s face, even through the glove of his flight suit.

It had felt _good._ The same way kicking Cook across his smarmy jaw had felt good.

Abel felt like a bundle of raw nerves and live wires, working on reactionary instinct as he wound up for a second slap. Cain recovered too quickly, though, his fighter’s reflexes allowing him to catch the wrist of the incoming attack. Abel pushed up out of his seat, unbalancing Cain, who sprawled back against the nav controls.

_UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT IN NAVIGATION CONSOLE. SAFETY LOCK ENGAGED._

Cain grabbed his other flailing arm, and like a test of reaction time, Abel’s knee immediately came up to meet the fighter’s gut.

“Uggh!” grunted Cain, starting to double over.

But he arrested the motion after a second, pushing through the pain to shove Abel back into his seat with a snarl. The fighter used his greater body weight and muscle to hold him there, pinned so they were face-to-face. Cain practically on top of Abel.

It felt too close to the many other times Cain had pushed him up against a wall or floor or whatever other surface was around. Too close to remembered lust, passion in the heat of the moment. Too rough in all the right ways. Arousal joined anger in Cain’s expression, and Abel felt his body respond; a fire being stoked low in his abdomen, his cock giving a twitch. He willed himself not to get hard, watching as Cain apparently fought the same urge, eyes scrunching shut, jaw clenched. Cain let out another low growling noise as he let go of Abel’s wrists, backing up slightly in what little space the cockpit allowed. Abel could still feel his fighter’s breath hot on his face.

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” he said, the threat in his tone unfamiliar, but feeling right. Like something that had been building inside him.

“Why are you so fucking pissed, Abel? We survived!”

_“We needed candidates with ‘a strong emotional response’ to trigger the jump drive. You were everything we were looking for…”_

Cook’s words pushed to the front of his mind, making him shudder with the memory of what had just happened. Everything from this endless, awful day bunching up in his brain, making it hurt even more.

“You’re even stupider than I thought!” he yelled, wanting to hurt Cain the way he was hurting, even as unlikely as it was, “We survived because I’m an idiot who’s still in love with the _asshole_ who faked an entire relationship with him! I should hate you! I _do_ hate you!”

“Fuck, Abel! How many times do I have to say it?” Cain ground out the question, hands up at his temples again, looking like he was about to tear his hair out. The way he’d looked that day in the cargo hold after letting his real name slip. “It wasn’t fucking fake! Not for a long time.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Abel pleaded, sorrow threatening to crowd out his anger. “If you cared so much, you should have told me!”

“ _Blyat!_ ” Cain swore, hands balling into fists and coming down to his sides again, “How the fuck was I supposed to explain it, Ethan?”

“I don’t know! But you shouldn’t have let Phobos be the one to tell me!”

“Do you think I fucking wanted that?” asked Cain, a note of desperation in his voice, “I’m going to beat his prissy face in when we get back.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Arghhhh!” Cain began trying to explain himself again, reaching out to rest his hands on Abel’s shoulders as he did so, “I fucked up, but you have to believe me—”

Abel tuned it out. Didn’t struggle against Cain’s grip. Didn’t even look at him, just stared out the hatch into space.

_“You two… are as good as dead.”_

The Commander had been right. Abel recognized that all this was just prolonging their inevitable recapture, and probable execution. Running had been pointless.

“Hey! You even listening?” Cain let out a frustrated noise and started shaking Abel’s shoulders.

“Stop it,” Abel’s head flared with renewed aching, and he tensed up, “you’re hurting me.” To his credit, Cain stopped immediately.

“ _Fuck!_ I can’t do anything right…” the fighter said, sounding more and more upset as he continued speaking, “I don’t know what to do here, Abel!”

“Neither do I!”

“Yeah, but you’re the genius! I’m just the fucking useless fighter. You can figure it out!”

“Not if you keep yelling!”

“I’m NOT yelling!”

“Stop it!”

“Dammit, Abel!” snapped Cain, trembling slightly, whether with emotion or the effort of not shaking him again, Abel couldn’t tell.

He stared at his fighter, waiting.

“I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t deal with the thought of you asking for reassignment,” he said, quieter than before, “I didn’t want you to leave me.”

“So you were just being selfish,” said Abel, feeling exhausted, “The same way you’ve been about everything.”

“Yeah, fine! Fuck it, I’m a selfish bastard! I’m a stupid, selfish bastard who didn’t know what to do when– ah fuck it, you don’t believe me.”

“You haven’t given me any reason to believe you.”

“Arrrrrghhhhh! You’re fucking pissing me off, you know? Believe this!”

Cain shoved up into his personal space again and kissed him, hard and bruising. The fighter’s big hands pushed Abel’s helmet off and held his head in place, fingers of one hand twisted into his hair.

As usual, Cain had just dived in without bothering to get Abel’s opinion, lips engulfing his own, tongue pushing for entry against his closed lips. Abel tried to pull away, but he was trapped in his seat with the fighter on top of him, whose other strong hand came up to grab his chin. Holding his jaw hard enough to hurt, making him want to open it just to relieve the pressure.

It wasn’t like Cain had never pulled a move like that. It wasn’t like it didn’t still make Abel want him more, despite the situation. But he also felt like he might snap; strung so tight, adrenaline still lingering in his veins, every part of him wanting to run or fight. Rage and passion two sides of a coin that was spinning on its side, and he couldn’t tell which face would land upright. He tried to object in between unreturned caresses—to tell Cain off—but the fighter read his parted mouth only as an invitation to delve deeper, kisses getting messier and more forceful.

Abel didn’t even know he was going to do it until it had already happened, an animalistic noise coming from his throat as he snapped at the intruding lips, pushing back against Cain with all his strength at the same time.

“OW! You fucking bit me! What the hell, Abel?” said Cain, fury flashing in his eyes as he brought his hands to his mouth and touched at the open skin, fingers coming away bloody. A dark red oil slick on the fighter’s shiny black gloves.

“You don’t get to complain,” Abel said, and it didn’t even sound like his own voice. He could taste the coppery tang of Cain’s blood and it made him feel slightly ill as he stood his ground, hunched in the tiny space.

He didn’t know why he’d done it. Whether out of some urge to get back at the man for everything he’d done, or some twisted desire to mark him in return. To burn himself into Cain so he couldn’t just forget when this was all over. So he couldn’t just go back to his life in the colonies like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t taken over and then shattered Abel’s world. Because Abel couldn’t forget, wouldn’t ever forget this betrayal.

He watched as Cain sucked at the wound, then turned those dark, tempestuous eyes on him. Those eyes he’d loved to stare at; deep pools he imagined mirroring his own, holding secrets between them. The horror of revelation hit him anew. Cain’s eyes had been hiding secrets, not sharing them. 

Before Abel could even react, one of Cain’s hands was pushing at his chest, leaving a bright red smear on the white fabric of his flight suit. His head bumped against the slanting roof of the cockpit, making it throb with pain yet again, strong hands crushing into his biceps, fingers wrapping around to dig in just above his elbow pads. Cain looked like he wanted to say something, a vein in his temple twitching, the deep shadows beneath his eyes darker than usual. He leaned in next to Abel, breath tickling his ear.

“You’re still my bitch.”

Abel hated himself for how true it was. The words felt like salt in the deep wounds that had opened up beneath his ribcage back on the observation deck. Flaying him open from the inside, exposing his naïve and hopeless heart. He struggled against the fighter; a futile endeavour and he knew it, but he would have hated himself more if he didn’t struggle now.

_“You let him fuck you… like a bitch in heat.”_

But before he knew it, his tongue was in Cain’s mouth, reciprocating advances from earlier. He was so weak against the man who had betrayed him, who had used him. He shouldn’t want him this much, after everything he’d learned. Yet his body was as traitorous as his heart, hard and desperate already. Shame prickled hot along the back of his neck, but it just rolled into the complexity of his desire, inflaming the need coursing through him.

Their kisses were savage and messy, even more so with a constant trickle of blood coming from the side of Cain’s mouth. Had his own lips bled this much on that very first night with his fighter? Abel couldn’t remember. The exhaustion of everything that had happened leading up to this moment made that memory seem old and faded—like decades had passed since then, rather than just months. Something was dredged up, though, a sense memory, and Abel flicked his tongue into the cut he’d made on Cain’s upper lip.

The fighter hissed and caught Abel’s lower one between his teeth in response, clamping down with just the right force to be a promise—and a threat. Cain was grinding against him, the electric feeling of their erections rubbing together making his breath hitch and stutter out of his lungs.

“Nnnnn, Ethan… please…” Cain’s voice communicated the desperate, needy feeling that surged through Abel, too.

The only response he could manage was to flip around so he could brace his weight against the seat; face and chest pressing into the padded surface, arms gripping around either side, and ass tucked up against Cain’s pelvis. He could feel the fighter’s length slide up and down the cleft, hear the man groan behind him. Two thin layers of fabric all that separated them, and it was still too much. Abel exhaled with relief as Cain rucked up the top of his flight suit and yanked the zipper of his pants down.

“Ahhh!” he couldn’t help letting out a little gasp as Cain’s gloved hands found his cock and gave it a few quick tugs. It seemed to throb in time with the now lessened throbbing of his head; his whole body beating with aching need.

_Zzzzpt_

The sound of Cain’s zipper coming down and the slight rustle of flight suit fabric let Abel know that the fighter was wasting no time. As if to underscore that, Cain pressed his hips up against Abel’s rear end again right after. The feeling of hot skin stretched over solid arousal, sliding against him so much closer than before; even if it was only a matter of millimeters. Abel wanted him so badly, wanted the stretch and press of him pushing in, taking over… but they were out in the middle of empty space with no supplies—

The distinctive sound of crinkling plastic being torn into made Abel look back over his shoulder, where Cain was fiddling with a single-use packet of lube.

“Did you really have that with you?” he asked, not quite hiding the resentment in his voice, his annoyance at Cain’s presumptuousness. He watched as Cain slicked the fingers of his flight suit gloves.

“Would you rather I fuck you dry, Princess?” Cain bit back, irritation simmering in his words. He shoved a finger inside Abel without much consideration for being gentle.

Any reply Abel might have come up with was lost to the overwhelming feeling, the burn of the careless intrusion, the shock of it. He forced himself to relax; not a simple task considering the position he was in, holding himself up against the seatback and bent at the waist.

Or, for that matter, how much every fibre of his being still wanted to scream at the man doing this to him, even as it wanted him in equal measure.

Cain shoved another finger into him, the lube only _just_ easing the way enough to keep it from being unbearably painful. Abel bit back a whimper, letting the sensation wash over him, the pain-pleasure of it breathtaking—quite literally. He struggled to take in a breath, but it was good. He didn’t want care or delicacy right now. He might not have been able to physically take Cain in a fight, but he could perhaps get that same release from taking him like this, where he knew his body could match the ferocity of his partner.

Cain crooked his fingers, rubbing inside Abel just so, and white hot pleasure seared through him. It was blinding heat, like pure desire seeping into every cell of him—making him moan, forgetting everything but where they were joined. Where fighter and navigator met, inside the cockpit of their Starfighter. In more senses than Abel could even think of, brain addled by Cain’s rough touch.

_“Abel… Ethan… I didn’t mean for any of this to happen…”_

Cain had never been good at apologizing, or owning up to stuff he’d done. Abel knew this, and until now he’d always forgiven the other man. He’d been able to read contrition in the way Cain made love to him, the way the fighter treated his body. The repentance in his actions; little things like remembering to turn up the vents when he smoked, or putting bandages on so Abel wouldn’t wake up to bloodstained sheets.

Cain’s fingers left him too quickly—the sharpness of their sudden absence made Abel shudder. Before he could get used to it, Cain was already changing things up again. The fighter’s strong hands held his hips tight, nearly painfully, and the blunt press of his cock made Abel drop his head and gasp for breath.

Was there repentance in Cain’s actions this time? Admission of guilt? Request for forgiveness? Abel couldn’t tell. Couldn’t tell whether Cain’s touch was cold and devoid of its previous care, or whether he just wasn’t listening right, closing himself off to avoid getting hurt again. Couldn’t think straight, feeling like his whole body would split open down the center, from the tip of his head to the base of his tailbone. From one locus of pain-pleasure to another.

All he could focus on was the inexorable movement of Cain deeper into him. When he felt Cain’s front flush against his back, he barely had a moment to adjust before one of the fighter’s hands abandoned his hip and found its way around his throat. Abel’s mouth fell open but no sound came out as Cain began to pound in and out of him.

That fierce, primal way Cain fucked him was so familiar at this point. Abel sank into it like a comforting blanket or mug of favourite tea before bed. He knew he should fight that sense of ease, knew things had changed and he shouldn’t be so content to fall back into the same patterns. He tried to put up some resistance, wanted to claw at Cain, scratch red marks down his sides. His flight suit gloves were still on, though, and the fingertip pads would make that impossible.

Instead he braced his shoulder into the seat more and reached back to slap his hands onto the fighter’s ass. He grabbed with a ferocity to match Cain’s grip on his hip, and felt a tightening of the hand around his throat in response. Panting, he pulled at Cain to make him snap his hips more. To match the pace and rhythm that Abel set with his forearm muscles stretched out behind him.

His body still hadn’t gotten the memo, though; all his cells seemed to want for nothing more than Cain to take control fully. So he let his mind take a back seat, focused only on the feeling of their bodies meeting, of Cain’s cock sliding in and out of him. He acquiesced to the fighter once more, dropping his hands back to the seat.

Of course, that was when Cain opted to slow his motions, letting his hands travel over Abel’s body instead of digging in and holding. The fighter’s big hands played at the edge of his flight suit top, peeling it up and exposing more of Abel’s skin to the cool atmosphere of the cockpit. Abel felt goosebumps creep up his stomach as he shucked his gloves, not particularly careful about the delicate finger pads, tossing them aside. He let Cain pull his top the rest of the way up over his head before leaning back into the padded surface of his seat.

Gloved fingers sticky with half-dried lube teased at his now-hard nipples, knuckles stroked down his shivering flanks, the touches almost reverent. Abel felt Cain lean over him, shifting the angle of his thrusts to hit just right. The sparking pleasure of each one mingling with the softer sensation of kisses trailing down his neck and across his shoulders. Warm lips such a contrast to the chilly air around them.

He felt wet drops land on his back, slipping down the lines of his muscles and bones beneath the skin, pooling along the hollow of his spine. They could have been sweat or tears; without turning around he couldn’t know for sure. He didn’t want to know. Cain’s grunts and ragged breaths could just be from exertion and arousal.

Abel’s thoughts wandered to how much had changed since they’d been paired together. Like how he’d been so embarrassed and ashamed when he first saw Cain jerk off in the ship, then grown to love fucking inside their Starfighter. A place just for them, even more personal than their room. The place where they shared victories, where they worked together as a single unit.

_“You’re not just a mission to me!”_

How could he believe anything Cain had said, knowing what he knew now? But still, something gnawed at his doubts and made his guts twist funny.

His mind was brought back to the moment by Cain reaching around him and grasping his cock again, the fighter’s gloves now removed as well. The warm, calloused hand working up and down his shaft almost as familiar feeling as his own. He felt Cain press up against his back, warmth easily escaping the shiny flight suit fabric and seeping into his own flesh. Felt Cain’s breath growing more and more erratic as it hit the nape of his neck, fluttering the longer locks of dark hair that hung down to trace the space between his shoulder blades, tickling a little.

Cain cried out wordlessly as he came, the noise muffled as he bit into the top of Abel’s shoulder. The firm, spread-out pain felt just like the first time they’d done this, yet infinitely different. They’d been strangers then, had barely known each other for a quarter of an hour. So much lay between them now; things that drew them together, and things that threatened to wall them apart forever. Even the shock of the bite wasn’t enough to send Ethan over the edge he’d been hanging on—seemingly stuck, unable to reach his own climax. Frustration and anger and hurt all tangled in his gut, fighting with his arousal and coming up stalemate.

So instead he focused on the feeling of Cain’s weight on top of him, which still felt so grounding, calming. As he listened to the fighter’s breathing even out, Abel wondered if that was it for him… for them. He felt gentle fingers trailing through the back of his hair, stroking the short hairs there. The damp press of swollen and split lips along his vertebrae, the prickle of uneven bangs along his skin as Cain’s forehead came to rest there. He wondered—not for the first time—if he’d made the right choice, joining the Alliance.

Cain pulled out after a moment, the physical emptiness mirroring how Abel felt. Hollowed out. Half wishing he could have what was missing back, half just wanting to lie down and let his insides drip out until he was nothing but a husk without the ability to care at all.

The fighter turned him around by the shoulders; too gentle, careful not to grab where he’d just bitten. He rearranged them so they could share the chair, Abel half-seated in Cain’s lap. Cain had one arm around him, and the other found his neglected cock, still miraculously hard. Abel gasped at the renewed contact, grip just as firm as he liked it, but kept his eyes pointed out the window of the cockpit hatch.

“Ethan…”

He felt Cain’s hand slide up his back to tangle in his hair.

“Look at me?” asked Cain, voice sounding hoarse and wrecked.

He didn’t look. Didn’t want to know whether it was just the sex, or something else, which had made Cain sound so vulnerable. The hand in his hair clenched around fluffy strands, still clumped and standing out in all directions from being in the helmet of his flight suit earlier. His scalp burned where the hair pulled.

“Ethan… please…”

_“I don’t… want it to be over…”_

Words from earlier rang in his head, completing the sentence Cain had left hanging.

Resisting the hold on him hurt. He clenched his teeth for a moment, then gave in. He wanted this far too much—he was too stupid and weak, and still too close to the man whose lap he sat in. He met Cain’s eyes, and they were too shiny, too full of sentiment. Abel couldn’t stand to keep staring into them, but couldn’t look away again, either. He let his eyes close, instead, and felt the delicate press of a too-soft kiss as Cain leaned in toward him. Cain didn’t pull away afterward, just stayed there with his lips over Abel’s. Hand slowly moving up and down, wringing pleasure out of him, keeping him teetering right on that edge.

So Abel kissed back, justifying it to himself as a goodbye kiss. One last time, and then maybe he could walk away from his traitorous lover. Cain became gentler after Abel finally responded; the grip in his hair no longer painful, fingers moving around to stroke the lines of his face.

Cain was kissing him like it was goodbye, as well; kissing Abel like he’d never get another chance to, like he wanted to memorize every inch of him, the feeling of every touch they shared. Abel both heard and felt the shuddery breath Cain let out against his lips. But it was the surprise of warm, wet tracks on Cain’s cheek as the man nuzzled the side of his face which finally got Abel’s eyes to snap open again. Cain kissed his temple and just below his ear, all along his jaw, before pressing their foreheads together.

The fighter inhaled sharply, then spoke in a smaller, more broken-sounding voice than Abel had ever heard from him. “I didn’t want to lose you… because I fucking fell in love with you, too, you fucking uptight asshole.”

Shocked by the confession, Abel stopped breathing for a moment, looking at Cain—no, _Alexei_ —practically vibrating with the force of holding everything back.  The other man was too close to focus on all at once, so he was left with a collection of fuzzy and clear impressions, overlapping and merging as he tried to search the face staring back at him. Tears brimming at the edges of dark eyes, black and turquoise tufts of hair falling across dusky tan skin, lower lip trapped between white teeth, and a twitching scowl that threatened to fall into despair if not kept in check. His head began to ache again from the almost cross-eyed focus, so he pulled away slightly. Cain must have taken the movement as a rejection, head turning to the side as if slapped again, eyes squeezing shut.

Abel reached out to touch his face for the first time since he had cracked his hand across it. He was gentle now, cupping Alexei’s chin, thumb brushing over the line of his mouth where he was still biting his lip. He tilted the fighter’s face back towards him, meeting only a small amount of initial resistance.

“Alexei…” Abel said his name aloud for the first time since the disastrous aftermath of Cain accidentally telling him, back in that cargo hold on their ‘date’. It felt like an eternity ago.

He leaned in again, touching their lips together, and Cain opened to him completely, letting out a heaving breath that would almost have been a sob if not channeled directly into a deep kiss. He ran his fingers through Alexei’s hair, caressing down his neck and the tops of his shoulders, stroking his sides. He could feel the larger man shaking under his touch, so much emotion bubbling up and over into every meeting of their mouths.

Abel gasped as the hand on his cock resumed stroking up and down, pace ramping up quickly, giving him almost no chance to get used to it. He’d practically forgotten all about it, lost to the depths of those all-consuming kisses. Now, with both at once, his hips began to jump of their own accord, his breath coming in short gasps as he finally crested that wave of pleasure, free-falling off the edge of it and crashing into his orgasm.

“Ahh, ahhh! _Ah-lexei!_ ”

After returning to himself, Abel wrapped both arms around Cain’s neck, pulling him close. His dark-haired head rested on Abel’s shoulder, as he pressed soft kisses around the edges of the bite mark he’d left. They sat in silence like that for a while, perhaps neither of them sure exactly what to say, worried what the other might be thinking.

Cain broke the strange, tense-yet-calm stillness first. “I really am sorry, Ethan. So sorry. It doesn’t change the shit I did…”

“No, it doesn’t…”

“… but if we make it back, I won’t let you take the fall for anything that happened today,” Cain said, huffing out a breath before continuing, “It’s my fault… I’m the one who fucked up. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

Abel didn’t know what to say to that. He just buried his nose deeper into Cain’s hair.

“I’ll take the blame… go back to prison,” said Cain after another moment, “It’s okay.”

Abel pressed a kiss to the side of his head before replying. “I’m not going to let them send you back to prison without a fight. It’s not your fault, Alexei. It’s the fault of the Alliance brass who manipulated us both,” he said, pulling the other man tighter against him, “I’m not going to let them get away with this… whatever happens, I’m going to be there, okay?”

They would figure it out. Work as seamlessly as they did here in the cockpit. Most importantly, they would face it together. Now it was just a matter of getting home.

Abel looked to the navigational controls and saw their position now calibrated, everything on standby—waiting for him to activate the orb again and take them there.

 

END


End file.
